Timeslip
by ViridianPanther
Summary: Someone is altering Commander Shepard's past. Kaidan Alenko, who perished two years ago on Virmire, is alive, with Ashley Williams, the love of Shepard's life, taking his place in history. He finds himself embroiled in an affair he doesn't remember starting, and having an upbringing completely different to what he remembers. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey head canon-fudging thriller.
1. Whatever Happened to Ashley Williams?

**Tuesday evening**

I notice something's wrong as soon as I step aboard the _Normandy_ at ten p.m. by the ship's clock.

The doors have started making odd noises, chiming when they open and beeping loudly as they're about to close. The design of the locks has changed, too. They're more circular, less segmented, and lime-green rather than teal.

"That's new," I mutter to Lieutenant Cortez as we step into the elevator. He hits the button for the crew deck: I press the button for the loft.

"What is?"

"The noise. The doors have started making a noise."

"They've always done that, Commander," Steve says, eyeing me curiously. "It's regulation."

"Regulation?"

"You probably know more about it than I do."

"I've never noticed it before," I say, as the lift groans to a halt and announces the crew deck.

"You take things for granted after a while, I suppose." The doors slide open with that wailing two-tone chime, and Cortez steps out. "Good evening, sir."

"Good night, Steve," I say, jabbing the "door close" control with my little finger. I must be getting old. I genuinely haven't noticed that noise before.

_"Commanding officer's quarters,"_ the elevator announces. The doors judder and wail again. I feed the fish, and start up the sound system.

It begins playing classical music, something savage and raw and Russian in nature. "Not that," I snap at the little holographic clock, "something electronic. Something calm."

The music clicks off and becomes a gentle, repetitive electronic melody as I shrug off my jacket and roll my shoulders. _Long day._

My terminal makes an odd noise as I start my Kronos-assault simulation script. Maybe it's developed an allergy to Fortran? I know I have. I bring up the crew manifest in a separate window and hit the command to call Ash up to my quarters.

She's not there.

She always is—first name on the very final page of the crew manifest. SPECTRE WILLIAMS Ashley Madeline, but she's not there. Everyone else is, but…

I open up the Alliance OffNet system and search for Ashley Williams, 53456-EP-1942. GUNNERY CHIEF. DECEASED W/HONS, KIA, VIRMIRE, 24 JULY 2183.

_Jesus._ I feel the blood drain from my system: how? _How?_ I refresh the page, hoping it's a mistake. It doesn't change. MISTER WILLIAMS Ashley, 53456-EP-1942. DECEASED W/HONS, KIA, VIRMIRE, 24 JULY 2183.

I enter Kaidan Alenko's name in the search box. SPECTRE ALENKO Kaidan Makoto, 21943-BA-0953. MAJOR. IN SERVICE, SSV-SR-2, DEPLOYED: 19 MARCH 2186.

_None of this makes any sense._ I still remember the feelings of dread and guilt from two years ago as I updated this database record to record his death, the tears of Mikio and Marianne Alenko as we dropped off their son's possessions in Vancouver—and there's a chime at the door.

A glance at the monitor causes my stomach to churn. It's been three years, but I still remember his face, and the sight of it on the monitor brings a wave of nausea over my digestive system.

The door chimes again. _What the hell's going on?_ I stand up, straighten myself out, and steel myself before the door. My finger hovers over the 'door open' control for a second or so before I finally bring myself to push inward.

The door wails and rolls apart, and the late Kaidan Alenko stands before me, alive.

"Kaidan?"

"Hey, Shepard." His voice is still the same, a little quieter and deeper, maybe, but still definitely _him._

I want to say, "what is this? This is cold, this is sick," but I can't bring myself to say anything as he smiles, stood in his crewman's uniform, his unkempt hair combed backwards (I can see a few strands of grey, that's new) and his skin flushed a little pink, paler than I remember it. I want to prod him, check he's real, but I don't need to as he closes the distance between us and pulls me close—and I want to push him away and kick him out but I can't do that, either.

I can't do anything.

I stand, paralysed by his sudden appearance, as he embraces he and nestles himself in the crook of my shoulder. What the _hell_ is this? Am I supposed to be—

A gentle kiss to my jaw answers a question I haven't even finished asking. "Are you OK?" Kaidan whispers—he can tell something's up.

"Fine, fine," I say, quickly, breaking apart the embrace. "This was just… unexpected."

"Is this a bad time?"

"No, no," I say. "Just been a bit of a long day… I've still got to finish this," and I gesture towards the terminal.

"OK." He undoes the top button of his uniform shirt. "When you're finished, Shepard, I just… I… we need to talk."

I haven't seen Kaidan in three years, but I can tell there's something wrong just by listening to his voice. "Can I get you a cup of coffee?" I ask him as I sit down at the terminal and unlock it.

"Yes, please."

I punch in orders for a white coffee (I still remember how Kaidan takes—_took_—his coffee, after all this time) and an americano for myself. He sips at his coffee quietly as I drop a sachet of sugar into my own and open up the journal application on the computer.

My psychiatrist after Akuze had suggested keeping a diary, saying that people who wrote about everything that happened to them tended to find it easier to come to terms with grief. I've stuck to it diligently since then, and it helped _a lot_ in getting over Kaidan's and Mordin's deaths, the horror of the suicide mission and the Alpha relay, and the endless desolation of my two months under house arrest in Portland.

"Long day?"

"Yeah," I lie. "Can't get my code to compile." I don't have the source code for my war simulation script up at all: in fact, I'm staring at a journal that's been perfectly empty for seven years.

Seven years ago, I ended a loveless relationship with Helena, a pretty but brash girl I'd met in a quiet bar in Vancouver. I was still on leave after Akuze, and I'd only moved in with her because I was lonely, more than anything. The references are all there in this diary: the words _I_ remember writing, the accounts _I_ gave of unsatisfying sex, of her emotional hardness, and—at the point where I _know_ that seven years ago, I told her, "it's over," and walked out on her, the diary entry says nothing more than "fuck this."

After that, it's empty. I (or the man whose skin this belongs to, because it sure as hell isn't mine) haven't written anything in the journal application for seven years. I remember the emotional desolation of life with Helena, and imagine the torture it must have been for this man—this _other Shepard?_—to have lived with her for even longer.

"Damn type conversions," I mutter, continuing the illusion I'm programming while I bring up every mail I've sent and received in the last seven years. There's a _lot_ of messages from Kaidan here, many of them one-liners.

_thanks for letting me bunk with you last night, shepard. it helped a lot. -ka_

_ Any time Kaidan. You should probably get Chakwas to prescribe you some stronger pain meds. SHEPARD_

_she'll probably say it's over-exertion. hopefully i won't need to disturb your sleep again in the near future. -k_

_I'm not complaining if you do! SHEPARD_

_are you flirting with me again!_

_FYI my code is currently compiling. I'm allowed, aren't I? I'm not busy. SHEPARD_

There's a few interesting revelations. This man—this other me—has had something going on with Kaidan for a while, for six weeks by the looks of things, starting with a lunch date on the Citadel. Ironic: the same place Ash and I had met up and agreed to get back together.

The other me signs off his mails with his name in capital letters. I rarely bother signing mine off at all. The other me has a shuffle playlist consisting of a lot of Stravinsky, a lot of Copland, a lot of Debussy. I've never been particularly fond of classical music, always preferred soft electronica.

Whoever this other Shepard is, he's a very different man.

"Shepard, I…"

"Yeah, hold on," I say, quickly, pretending to correct a syntax error. "There we go. Done." I switch the terminal off, and stand.

"Fiddly?"

"I swear Fortran will be the death of me," I smile, although it's forced, and I hope to god Kaidan can't see how nervous, how confused I am. "Sorry about that, Kaidan."

"It's fine, Shepard. I just need to talk, because… well, it's important."

"What is?" I'm apprehensive and still damn confused.

"You'll want to sit down," he says, averting his eyes. Something's up, something big, and for a moment I sit beside him on the couch, throw caution to the wind and look him straight in the eye.

"Shoot," I say.

"I… uh… spoke to Chakwas. Like you said, I asked her for her advice, and she ran a PTA scan, and…"

"And?"

"There's a tumour."

_Tumour._ Tumour? God…

"She said it's early days, yet… probably a result of Mars, and she said the acupuncture that doctor put me on may have made it worse. But it's… it's malignant."

_Malignant_ is a horrible word, and one that kicks me right in the stomach. This is horrible—as far as I'm concerned, Kaidan's been dead for two years, and he thinks this is another man, and I feel like a fraud and I feel sorrow and pity for him and—

"What's the prognosis?" I ask, keeping my jaw clenched tightly shut.

"Without treatment? A year," Kaidan says, his head drooping. "Possibly less."

"What about treatment? Can't you get it removed?"

"Yeah, but Chakwas says the only safe way to do it would be to remove the whole implant. And even then… the mortality rate…" he pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, "it's forty per cent."

_Forty per cent._ "God, Kaidan, I'm so… sorry," I say, and I find myself embracing him as he buries his face in the crook of my—in the crook of the _other Shepard_'s shoulder.

I stay still, because although I'm holding him that's something _I'd_ do anyway, give him a shoulder to lean on. I have no idea what the other me would do at this point: kiss him? Tell him everything's going to be alright? Cradle him and whistle a lullaby? No damn idea.

"Thanks, Shepard," Kaidan breathes, and without thinking about it I kiss him on the top of his head. I immediately feel guilty: I'm not _his Shepard._ I'm not the man Kaidan trusts, the man Kaidan clearly loves more than anything, and I feel like I'm betraying—even _cheating_ on Ash.

I let Kaidan Alenko die on Virmire. It wasn't a decision I enjoyed making, and in the two years between then and now, I've seen him nowhere but in my own nightmares. And this feels _wrong._ I feel sick, suddenly, and gently push Kaidan out of the way. "Sorry. Just need a moment."

I splash cold water on my cheeks, and survey my dampened, glistening face. It's similar enough to my own to appear virtually identical, but I feel like I'm in another man's skin.

I wipe my face dry, and step back into the cabin.

"Are you OK?" Kaidan asks, his voice fragile.

"Fine," I lie. "Are you OK?"

"Not great, but I'm… um…" Kaidan takes my hand in his and leans against my chest, "I'm glad you're here."

_He smells different to Ash,_ I think. A light, airy smell of ozone, couldn't be more different to how Ash always seems to smell of her regulation shampoo and deodorant.

"Kaidan, I—"

"Come to bed," he asks, quietly, interrupting me. "Please?"

I feel a sensation of dread build in my stomach, and try to mask it from my face as I strip to my underwear and crawl between the sheets with Kaidan. We've seen each other naked before, of course: on the first _Normandy_, everyone, CO included, had to wait in line for a minute and a half under one of three showers. No sex or species segregation, and no privacy: you can't afford to be prudish on a stealth starship.

It's been a long while since I've been with a man, but Kaidan's a gentle lover, attentive and forgiving. I even begin to enjoy myself at one point, but then feel a stab of guilt as I remember that there's no way this can be right, at all, and I'm wincing as he makes love to me.

Any enjoyment of the climax is wrecked by the sensation of feeling like an imposter.

* * *

**REM**

I'm in the forest, again.

Gravity is about Earth normal, possibly a little less, and I feel light-headed, shrouded in fog. There's a gentle wind on my cheeks and…

_BOOM._

There's the stabbing, throaty groan of a Reaper's horn, and I _run_, run after the little boy, bellow for him to get behind a tree, or into a cave, or something—

_BOOM._

Another Reaper rolled over the horizon, and another, their engines roaring like thunder as they glided closer, and closer, to converge on a clearing, a campfire. It's murky, and I can't see clearly, but—there's a man, a pale, tall man with black hair, and a sharp-nosed woman with her dark hair tied in a bun—

_BOOM._

"Ash! Kaidan!" I yell, as the boy runs into Kaidan's arms and Ash peers upward, staring into the eye of the three abominations floating above us.

A howl of machinery, a squeal of something electronic—and all three Reapers flourish their anti-matter death-rays, emitting deafening screams of alien exaltation as they immolate my friends—

_BOOM._

* * *

**Wednesday morning**

_"Shepard."_

A gasp knocks me awake, and I'm covered in sweat, shaking from the cold and the vivid horror of the nightmare. A warm hand clasps me by the shoulder.

"Shepard!" It's Kaidan. He places a hand on my forehead and shushes me. "It's OK."

"Thanks," I whisper, and he kisses me on the lips. I ignore the pang of guilt and take slow, deep breaths.

"What was it?" he asks.

"It was Ash."

Kaidan's face flattens, and he sighs in something between exhaustion and sadness at the memory of Virmire. I can still remember his voice as he willed me to go and rescue Ash. I still remember his final words over the comm channel: "give 'em hell, Shepard. Tell my mom and dad I love them." I wonder what Ash's final words were in this Shepard's world, but I can't. It's too painful, and I force myself to stop before I start tearing up.

"It's hard, isn't it? Imagining how different it could've been," Kaidan whispers, in his muted, gravelly voice that's too smooth to count as 'husky.'

I don't tell him that I don't need to imagine—I _know_ how things could've been different. I know how it _was_ different. He brings me a coffee, and I smile gratefully even though I wince when I sip it. There's no sugar. Maybe the other me takes his coffee black.

"It's difficult," I agree, quietly, as I brace myself through the scalding bitterness of the coffee. "And she doesn't deserve to be forgotten."

"Yeah." Kaidan puts a hand on my shoulder, and gently strokes up to my neck, the back of my head, and back. I try to hide how wrong this feels as he finds his words, "you know, I… for what it's worth, I think you're amazing. You just… um…"

He kisses me on the cheek, and I smile, but I can't bring myself to reciprocate: I'm touched, but all the time wary that Kaidan loves a different man. I loved him (in the past tense) as a friend—a deeper, romantic relationship had certainly never crossed my mind, and I'd committed myself to Ash.

Ash, who I love with all my heart, isn't here. She's dead (how? Twenty-four hours ago, she was alive and groggy and we were holding each other loosely in the afterglow of sex.)

The image of her, being incinerated by three Reaper lasers at once, has burned itself into my eyelids, and I feel like a cheat and a fraud.

_I want to go home._


	2. Through the Castle Gate

**Wednesday afternoon**

The shuttle rattles into life, and the door screeches its repeating siren as it closes.

The mole on the back of my neck is itching, and I feel almost unnaturally hot and sweaty and clammy. We've spent the last three days docked at the Citadel, refuelling, carrying out final repairs and upgrades in preparation for the assault on the Cerberus headquarters.

We arrive at the Normandy's shuttle bay in less than five minutes, and I head straight to the bridge.

"Just two unread mails at your private terminal, Commander."

"Thank you." I authenticate at the terminal and find two new mails. Personal-injury spam, and something from Miranda Lawson.

There's something wrong here, too. Something wrong again—the mails I looked up yesterday, all the other me's one line mails to Kaidan, are gone. There's a few between me and him, but they're all business-related, asking about his attempts to track down Biotics Division.

I feel my blood run cold. It's happened _again_? Is there something going on that's altering my past?

"Is there something wrong, Shepard?" Traynor asks, looking over from her own terminal.

"No," I lie. I open the last mail from Miranda.

_Shepard,_

_I'd just like to thank you again for your help on Horizon. Whatever my father was thinking, Sanctuary was cold, even by his standards. Whatever monster masterminded this, I want a word with that. I know you're headed for Cronos station now, so you have my permission to blast the Illusive Man and his cronies to hell and back._

_Maybe, when you win this war, we can retire to a little house somewhere and be happy. You've earned that. I hope we get the chance._

_Yours, Miranda_

"The plot thickens," I mutter under my breath, without realising I'm saying it out loud.

"Something wrong, Commander?"

"No, it's fine." I lock the terminal. "Specialist, is there anything I should know?"

"Lieutenant Cortez said he'd like a word. Something about Major Alenko, I think. In confidence."

"Of course. I'll head down to the shuttle bay now."

The doors still make a chiming noise, but it's different, a semitone higher in pitch and it only plays when the doors are sliding shut. The privacy of the elevator gives me a few moments to compose myself.

Something's happening to me. Either I'm going mad, or someone—or some_thing_—is messing with my past, transferring me to alternate realities. I'm roughly acquainted with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which says that every possible outcome of any random event results in a parallel universe, but this still makes no sense.

"Shuttle bay—doors opening," the lift announces, in a male voice (it _was_ female.) I can hear a guitar, and out-of-tune singing, a melody that I can roughly identify as _You Are My Sunshine._

"Don't give up your day job, James," Steve calls from the Kodiak, a screwdriver between his teeth as he fiddles with an allen key. "Commander," he says, dropping the screwdriver and looking up, "do you have a moment?"

"Of course."

"Not here," he says, placing his tools in the box and locking them, "somewhere discreet."

Somewhere discreet? This was about Kaidan, so why…

"Traditionally," I say, "it's the server room."

Steve nods, locks his terminal and dusts off his hands.

"Have fun, try not to bugger each other!" Vega calls from across the room.

"Shut up, James," Steve snaps, as we enter the elevator and the doors close. "Sorry. He's got something up his ass lately."

"I didn't even realise he had a guitar."

Steve's eyebrows slide up his forehead. "Well, you've seen it before. You were the one who banned him from playing it on the crew deck."

I want to ask, _was I?_ but I don't. We head to the AI core quietly, and I put a three-minute lock on the door. "OK, Steve. Shoot."

"I think Kaidan may be having trouble with his implant," Steve says, in a tone that's matter-of-fact and straightforward, but instinctively hushed.

I give myself a few seconds to process this information. _Suspect he may be having trouble with his implant._ I remember what Kaidan—the other Kaidan—told me: Chakwas had discovered a brain tumour, and remembering the way he'd broken that news makes my stomach churn.

"OK," I say, slowly. "Why are you coming to me about this?"

"Because I've spoken to him about it," Steve said, leaning against a handrail, "but he keeps fobbing me off. A sort of 'I can handle it, leave me alone' attitude."

"Alright." I try to forget that as I remember last night, Kaidan was in my bed, whispering affection into my ear as he clung to me. "And what makes you say this?"

"You must have noticed that his migraines are getting worse." Steve's face is drawn with genuine concern, and it's difficult to have to hold back the truth from him—the truth that I know Kaidan's dying, and there's a fifty-fifty (well, forty-sixty) chance that it won't matter if he survives this war or not, because the operation to save his life might well kill him.

I daren't, because I doubt Kaidan himself knows yet.

"I have noticed," I bluff. "Thanks for bringing this up, Steve. I'll do as you suggested, I'll ask Dr Chakwas to invite him in—"

"You mean Dr Michel."

"Yeah, Michel. I'll have a word with her, see if she can do anything about it. Thanks again, Steve." _Michel?_ How is Dr Michel on the ship? I peer into the cupboard in the medical bay, and Dr Chakwas's ice brandy has vanished. Just a few bags of coffee beans in its place.

I head out into the mess, and sit for a while, breathing, trying to wrap this new world around my head. I am (or the other me—the _third_ me is) in a relationship with Miranda, or was. Ash is still dead (my heart sinks as I remember that little detail, even though it seems distant by now, as if I've numbed myself to it) and Kaidan doesn't even know he's dying yet.

I flick up the war assets monitor on my omni-tool. The index stands at 3295. Forty-eight hours ago, I remember it being 5574. Maybe I'm using a different algorithm in this world, but—

My train of thought is interrupted by a pulsing light, the blue of a new mail notification. Diana Allers, with a one-liner marked urgent.

Ugh.

_Remember our meeting for an interview. Five minutes, your quarters. Tart yourself up, you're going on camera. x_

Sounds like her. It certainly reads like that short-sighted, naïve hack who I threw off my ship after she interviewed Ashley—and had the gall to suggest that I'd let Kaidan die so that we could keep our relationship going. (Extremely un-flattering footage of me in a skin-tight combat undersuit appeared on the next _Battlespace_, sent from Feros.)

Dreading more time in front of the camera, I adjust my leather jacket and my belt as the elevator glides to the loft. The doors slide open, and I enter my quarters.

She's already there.

On my bunk.

In a négligée.

"What's this?" I demand, my breath catching in my throat. _Eyes front, soldier,_ I tell myself—she's not attractive, not pretty in any way, but it's impossible to avoid at least glancing at her breasts.

"Like I said," she says, smiling, "an interview. One on one, you and me."

No. No, this can't be real. She's sprawled, on _my bed_, legs slightly apart, and there's a _camera_ hovering above the fish tank's control panel. This can't be real, it's like something out of a bad porn vid from the bowels of the extranet—but she's real, alright.

"You expect me to have sex with you," I say, blankly, actively averting my eyes from her cleavage.

"You did accept my offer to do an exclusive spread on you," she grins, with a sultry lick of the lips.

She didn't just say that. Did she? My mouth's dropped open and I snap it shut. "Do a spread on me. You…"

I take note of the camera again. _Camera._ She… no. Just, no.

"I think you should leave," I snap.

"I what?"

"I think you should leave," I repeat. "_Now._"

"Commander—"

"Ms Allers," I say, heading up to her and grasping her in the most appropriate way I can, "get out of my cabin."

"Get off me!" she protests as I lead her towards the threshold. "You can't just—"

"Yes I can," I interrupt, pushing her into the vestibule and pushing at the door control.

It's impossible to suppress a smirk as she vanishes behind the closing doors, but I feel a pang of worry in my stomach. Have I jumped between realities yet again without even noticing?

There's a gentle _hum_ from Allers's camera, and I use Tali's overload app on my omni-tool to send it crashing to the floor in a puff of sparks and smoke, before retrieving the memory core from the slot on its side and flushing it down the toilet.

The mails are still the same when I check my terminal: there's still that message from Miranda, so I haven't gone time-hopping again. I notice that the me of this world has made heavy use of the notes application on the terminal: there's thousands of them, stretching back right to his entry to service. There's no references to Mindoir, or to Akuze—does this Shepard have an entirely different history? What are the odds of that happening by chance?

I find my finger drifting to my forehead, to the scar I've had for seven years at my hairline. It was the acid secretion of the thresher maw that caused that, and it's been a constant reminder of what happened on Akuze that's plagued me every time I've looked in the mirror.

It feels different, though. I examine it in the bathroom mirror: it looks substantially different, at a different angle, as if the cause was mechanical and not chemical. I've got plenty of physical wounds, and this looks like it happened from some kind of slashing action: a knife, or some other cutting tool.

I had asked Miranda why Cerberus had bothered to restore _that scar_ to how it was, and she'd said that because of its prominence, if I were to lose it they'd feared I might not feel like the same man. I do now feel certain that I'm in someone else's skin: these scars aren't _my_ scars, and my face is not my own.

I sit back at the terminal and open up my own dossier. _SPECTRE SHEPARD John 5923-AC-2826. COMMANDER. IN SERVICE, SSV-SR-2, DEPLOYED: 12 FEBRUARY 2186_. My date of birth is the same, but the location has moved to a hospital in Chicago, on Earth. And I'm no longer a refugee of the raid on Mindoir, but a former street rat turned good at eighteen, a war hero, a zero-to-hero icon. There's even a section here on endorsements: the other me has given an endorsement to what seems like every store on the Citadel.

Have I fallen into some kind of mirror universe? Am I standing in the skin of an evil twin? A double?

The other Shepard (the third Shepard—I really should be keeping count) has used the notes application on the computer as a de facto journal, but he's kept his notes concise, and to the point. They rarely discuss his personal life: there's the odd snide observation about a fellow crewman or a superior during a meeting, occasional musings on Liara, on the Eden Prime beacon, on Virmire (I skip over that, knowing it'll be too painful for me to read.)

One says:

_I think Allers is making a play at me. It's lonely up here without Miranda._

Another, dated around five days later, reads:

_I regret letting that damn hack on this boat. She's got me under her thumb like an insect._

An affair? For a moment, I muse that I didn't think I had it in me. Rather than get bogged down in semantics and metaphysics, I create a new note and flag it urgent.

_Unfortunately I have had to terminate Ms Allers's exclusive deal. —A Friend_

I sit back and chuckle, laughing for the first time in forty-eight hours. Part of me feels sorry that the other man with my face, with my name, with my skin has been driven into such loneliness that he'll have sex with a narcissistic gonzo-reporter. The other part enjoys the childish fun of a noble prank that I can tell myself has done him a favour.

The high doesn't last long, though. I'm still confused, and I still want answers. And I haven't spoken to anyone about this.

I can't speak to the whole crew, less still to the Council. They're not going to believe me if I go to them warning of some some nebulous threat in my own mind _again._

_Garrus._

I zip up my jacket, feeling cold all of a sudden, and march from my quarters into the elevator, down to the weapon battery.

"Shepard. I'm a little busy, anything you need?"

"I need to talk. Urgently. In confidence."

Garrus puts a three-minute lock on the door, and I lean as comfortably as I can against a safety rail. His mandibles are clenched tightly against his face: that's a turian's way of expressing surprise, given that they don't have eyebrows.

"Shoot," he says.

I open my mouth, and gulp down the words I was going to say because when I think them through they make no sense. "Something's happening to me," I blurt, "I'm not sure what, but something—or someone—seems to be changing events in my past. I'm not the same Commander Shepard that you know. My past is completely different, it's as if this is some kind of alternate reality—"

"_Stop,_" Garrus says, mandibles firmly clenched. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"For god's sake, Garrus," I plead, "believe in me, for now—"

"I _do_ believe you, Shepard. I'd trust you to the end of the universe. Just start from the beginning, go slowly. We've got time," he says, re-configuring the door lock to ten minutes.

I take a deep breath, and try and explain everything: the way _I_ remember my history, being born on Mindoir and nearly being killed by a thresher maw; how I remember Kaidan sacrificing himself on Virmire; how I came home one night to find he'd suddenly replaced Ash as squadmate, friend and lover. I spit out scores of disjointed theories involving quantum mechanics, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the many-worlds interpretation; I confess the other-other Shepard's affair with Allers without even stopping to consider the ramifications.

"Garrus," I say, quickly, catching my breath, "even I don't know what's going on… for all I know, I could just be a brain in a jar."

"Well, in that case," he says, "I don't have much to add." He looks as baffled as I am. "I know you haven't been yourself, lately, but this…"

"Yeah." I feel ill, and there's sweat dripping down the back of my neck.

"Do you think it could be Cerberus?"

"Possibly. I—"

I'm interrupted by a chime of the intercom as EDI announces herself over the speaker. "Shepard. You may wish to go down to the starboard cargo bay. Ms Allers—"

"I'm on it." I don't need her to finish the sentence to know something's wrong. "We'll talk later," I tell Garrus, releasing the door.

I find Allers questioning Kaidan in the starboard cargo bay, and he's shifting on his feet, clearly uncomfortable.

"So you're not denying that you have had romantic relationships with men in the past."

"No, I'm not! I'm saying—" Kaidan begins.

"And you're not denying that you and Commander Shepard may, therefore, have had some kind of relationship going prior to the mission on Virmire?"

"I am categorically and absolutely denying—"

"Major Alenko," Allers interrupts, "do you feel that any sexual attraction between you and Commander Shepard may have—" and I can see where this is going and physically separate them, step before Allers, and glare into her eyes, too angry to even think about subconsciously staring at her breasts.

"Diana," I spit, "get off my ship."

"What?"

"Get off my ship. I'm ordering you to leave the _Normandy_ at our next stop, and take all of your equipment, and your tabloid journalism with you! Is that understood?"

She pauses for a moment, her unnaturally shiny cheeks (enhanced with surgery? possibly) pouting. "You don't want the public to know the truth," she growls.

"I won't have the people I love turned into puppets for a hit piece. It's called friendship."

"And you seriously want to maroon me on Cronos Station," she hisses, accusingly, "and become known as the man who left a journalist to die behind enemy lines in a war zone?" For a moment, I think I can see genuine fear in her eyes.

"Yes. You're right. Change of plan." I call up a radio channel to the shuttle bay. "Cortez, do you think we can spare a lifeboat?"

"Of course!" Steve says, "anything for you, Commander."

"Good." I shut off my omni-tool. "Allers, pack your things and report to the shuttle bay. You'll go into a lifeboat and within five hours you'll be back on the Citadel."

There's a frown, a furious, vicious frown forming on her lips. "This is like something out of Soviet Russia. You're silencing someone who's trying to seek out the truth."

"Bullshit. You've got ninety minutes until we hit the first mass relay," I announce, checking my omni-tool. "Best get back to the playground, Diana. Enjoy your Pulitzer prize while it lasts."

"You can't do this," she bellows, storming towards the crew mess.

"I'm Commander Shepard," I call after her, "and this is _my ship._ I can do what I damn like."

There's a moment of silence as Allers vanishes around the corner. Kaidan looks at me, a smirk stuck behind his lips, unable to form fully.

"You enjoyed that, didn't you?"

"Damn straight I did," I say. "What did she want?"

"She was… um." Kaidan shuffled on his feet again. "She was trying to… insinuate that you rescued me on Virmire and let Ash die because we were fraternising."

Extraordinary. "That's callous," I say, "even by her standards."

"I don't know how you put up with her for so long," he says, his voice becoming slightly faint.

"Don't let it get to you, Kaidan," I say, gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. "The only reason I…"

I pause for a moment, wondering if the events on Virmire were different in this world. Of course they were: Kaidan was alive and Ash was dead and all I wanted, more than anything, was to fall back into her arms and tell her I loved her.

"The only reason I rescued you on Virmire is because the HUD said you were closer," I say, reversing the events as I remember them happening. "And it's… it's not something I'm proud of."

He breaks into a forlorn smile. "Yeah. Well… thanks, Shepard." He takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes open and shut. _Migraine._

"You don't look well, Major," I say, remembering Steve's conversation and my 'insider' knowledge.

"I'm fine, Shepard. I just… I need a couple of minutes." He places his fingers at his temples and averts his eyes, looking away from Allers's lighting rig.

"Go to the observation deck," I tell him, sending a message on my omni-tool to Michel (_Michel_, remember, not Chakwas.) "I'll get the doc to meet you there with some pain meds."

Kaidan smiles again, and breathes a deep sigh (I'd forgotten, in his two-year absence, how much he did that.) "Thanks, Shepard. I, uh… I owe you."

I can read behind the smile: he's clearly infatuated with me (with the third Shepard, I remind myself.) This Kaidan doesn't have me, like the other Kaidan did, but he still wants me. There's a twist of heartbreak in his eyes, the lines of his face, and I remember that the only romantic relationship Kaidan had ever mentioned was his teenage crush on Rahna.

Did he feel like that about me on the first _Normandy_, before Virmire? In my world? _Stop it._

Whatever happens, I do hope, beyond anything, that Kaidan—this Kaidan—finds happiness in the end. He was and is a good soldier, and a good friend, and he deserves better than to stare down death with an unrequited love in the back of his mind.

As I head back to my quarters, I wonder what happened to the other alternate realities. What's happening to the Kaidan who was madly in love with the other me last night? What's happening to Ash? How many _me_s are there? What's happening to the Shepards I've displaced? Do they even exist?

Am I just a brain in a jar?

I'm thinking too much, I decide, and I'm exhausted. This Shepard has rum in his private refrigerator, rather than whiskey, but it'll do.

I spend the next thirty minutes or so swilling rum around in a glass, drowning my sorrows and thinking about how much I want Ash back. I contemplate my pity for the Shepard of this world, for Kaidan, and I even feel a little guilt for how I treated Allers.

It's not enough to stop me drifting to sleep before long.

* * *

**REM**

_"Shepard!"_

I'm not in the forest this time. I'm on the Citadel, at Huerta Memorial, and the mole on the back of my neck is itching.

_BOOM._

Kaidan's lying on a gurney, hooked up to a million monitors, the colour drained from his bare torso, his hair tousled into unattractive curls, and he's dying. Dying like Ash was, except he's _actually_ dying, I can see his ECG flatlining, and—

_BOOM._

I'm chasing the boy again, through the streets and stairwells of the Citadel, vaulting over barriers and barging through crowds of people, tossing an elcor to the side, as Sovereign's terrible silhouette eclipses the artificial sunlight.

_BOOM._

And he's running from an elevator, running into Ash's arms, and this is like the coup attempt, and I'm pointing my gun at Ash and— and—

_BOOM._

The bullet tears through her armour and hits her straight in the stomach, and I rush towards her, holding her as she screams _"you bastard! You monster! How could you—"_ and Sovereign is joined by Harbinger, and scores more Reapers, as the boy runs perfectly into the focal point of their fire and all the Old Machines exalt.

_BOOM._

* * *

**Thursday morning**

It takes a while for the confusion of the cold sweat to wear off, but I can sense there's something different already.

The tinge of the lights is redder, and the _Normandy's_ machinery seems to be growling more ferociously. My fatigues seem to be itching, starchier, cheaper, tighter, and—

I've grown breasts.

I blink. They're still there. Two bumps on my chest, which behave like breasts do when I prod them to check they're there.

_"Shit,"_ I mutter, and realise my voice has become higher-pitched, smoother, less bassy—that of a woman. Gently, afraid as to what I'll find, I lift up the waistband of my fatigue pants.

I'm a woman.

That's enough to bring a wave of nausea over me, and I rush for the bathroom and spew violently into the toilet. _God_, this is _sick…_

I rinse out my mouth and peer at my new face (or the face I've ended up with) in the mirror. As female faces go, it's not bad: I have chin-length auburn hair, a strong nose and green eyes. On the other hand, the scars from Cerberus's reconstruction are still there, sticking out like a sore thumb, glowing bright orange. I don't like them.

But whatever's happening, this is crazy. And I want it to stop. _Now._

There's a squeal of an alarm from my private terminal. Incoming message from the bridge.

"Commander Shepard," EDI announces, "we are six hours from Cronos Station. Mister Moreau is running the simulations on our final approach as we speak."

"Good," I say, still not used to the sound of this Shepard's voice, "I'll be down in a moment."

This Shepard has no coffee in his—in _her_ cabin: only boxes and boxes of earl grey tea pods. It's no substitute, but it wakes me up enough to slink down to the bridge and groggily check the assets list in the war room.

The index is 1846. The quarian fleet isn't present, neither is the ANN, neither are most of Aria's merc contracts.

"Shit, shit, shit shit _shit shit shit_," I mutter under my breath, paging through the asset history. Geth saved at the cost of a massacre of the quarian flotilla, many asari fleets lost completely. Grissom Academy gone, the second human Spectre, Ash Williams, dead in circumstances I don't have the will nor the stomach to read about. The other Shepard, the woman whose body I now occupy, has ordered that the pressure is to be kept on the Reapers at every opportunity.

Not my policy, but for now, I hope to god that it pays off.

"Looks grim, doesn't it?"

I look over my shoulder: it's Garrus, in a suit of armour I don't recognise. "Yeah."

"It's now or never, though. And I'd trust you to lead me through this more than anyone, Shepard," he says, clapping his hand on my shoulder and resting it there for a while. It's as if we never had our conversation yesterday: I'm afraid to ask if we did.

I spend five minutes or so speaking to Admiral Hackett on vid-comm. The Crucible is nominally complete apart from the Catalyst, and we still have no idea exactly what this enormous weapon is actually supposed to do. But if we leave it any longer, we risk losing the element of surprise, Hackett agrees: now's our best shot.

"After this," he declares, "it's one final push to Earth, and then we can smash the Reapers to hell."

"Assuming we're successful," I say.

"With all due respect, Shepard, now isn't the time to play devil's advocate."

I pause for a moment, feeling more than a little hopeless. "You're right."

"I understand the numbers look pretty grim, but in the end, it's boots on the ground that matter. Remember Torfan, you of all people understand that."

"Yes, sir," I say, not remembering anything about Torfan at all.

"Good. I'll leave you to prepare, send us a ping when you're ready," Hackett's hologram says, flickering. "Hackett, out."

His image disintegrates into red particles, and I lean against the handrail. I take a deep breath—I can't afford to let this time-travelling, many-worlds crap get in the way of the assault, or there won't be any worlds left _at all._

"Ma'am," Traynor's voice comes over the intercom, "your mother is available on vid-comm."

I do a double-take. "My mother?"

"Yes, ma'am," Traynor says. "She's available from the _Orziba._ Shall I patch her through?"

What—how? My mother's been dead for eighteen years, slaughtered by Batarians on Mindoir, but—I touch the control apprehensively, and a hologram forms in the booth.

She's in an Alliance uniform with the rank insignia of a Rear Admiral on her epaulettes, slimmer than I remember her, her hair grey and neatly curled, but—

"Mom," I whisper, faintly.

"Darling," she begins, and the sound of her voice (it's got a harder edge, the voice of a navy shipmaster, but it's certainly _her_) stabs at my heart like a Prothean memory shard, "I'm not sure what to say. I doubt many mothers would be proud to send their own daughter to war, but…"

"But what?" I feel myself smiling.

"I'm proud of you," she says. "Whatever happens, I'm proud of you, and we're all trusting you to win this war."

"No pressure," I smile, forlornly, weakly.

"I know you can do it, dear."

"Thank you."

"Just… be brave," she says, clearly steeling herself from tears welling behind her eyes, "and do your mom and dad proud."

This is—this is—

"I love you, mom," I whisper.

"We love you too, darling. Stay safe," Mom smiles, and stands to attention. "Shepard Senior, out."

The hologram fades too soon, and I find myself reaching over the handrail and into the booth as the image of my mother disintegrates into glowing particles.

I watched my mom get shot by a Batarian on Mindoir, I heard her sobs as she lay, dying, screaming at me to leave her, to run for the caves, to use my OmniComp to signal for help. The last words I ever heard her say were forever etched, excruciatingly, into my mind, flashing before my eyes every time I saw a photograph, or remembered her voice.

_"I love you, darling. Stay safe."_

And, for one moment, I forget that I'm Commander Shepard with the weight of the galaxy on my shoulders, and weep unashamedly at the vid-comm terminal.

After what feels like forever, I hear the wailing of a klaxon as the door slides open, and footsteps. I don't care who it is, and I don't care that they're seeing me in a moment of weakness. I've lost my mom and I've lost Ash and I've lost Kaidan and I want her back, and I want her back, and I want him back, and I want a fairytale ending that'll never happen.

"Can I get you anything, Shepard?" It's Liara, and she places her hand on my shoulder as I continue sobbing.

"No," I snap, and immediately feel bad and allow more tears to fall.

"You're exhausted," Liara says, gently. "You need some rest."

"I can't rest," I say, sniffing, "I've got to press on."

"We don't arrive at Cronos Station for another five hours." She places her hand on my face, and I forget the now-perpetual feeling of guilt and betrayal. It feels nice, comforting. "A few minutes R&R won't hurt you."

She wipes the tears from my eyes, and kisses me on the cheek.

"Perhaps you're right," I concede, falling into her embrace.

Sex with an asari isn't like sex with another human. It's purely electrical in nature, the melding of consciousnesses via nervous impulses. I'm glad not to have to learn how to use my new genitals yet, but afterwards, Liara gives me a look of hard, pensive thought.

She knows. She knows _everything._ Of course she does, she doesn't need to ask me about my experiences, and knowing Liara, she's probably already formulated a hundred and one separate theories about it and discounted half of them to boot.

She cups my cheek in her hands, and kisses me on the nose with a single, resolute statement.

"We have to stop this."

Thursday afternoon

The other Shepard likes her guns.

I've always treated them like tools, keeping no more than six in my locker at once and taking good care of them: before the first _Normandy_ was sunk I'd kept hold of my old Banshee assault rifle for years. I'm cautious about taking too many out into battle, knowing that there's a real risk of the extra weight putting a drain on the hardsuit's performance.

This Shepard, however, has two lockers filled with all manner of weapons. I recognise a Batarian shotgun, something I've always refused to carry on principle: it was a Batarian shotgun that fired the bullet that killed my father, and another that critically wounded my mother.

Things were clearly different in this world. Mom was still alive, and I remember seeing a Batarian grouping on the war terminal.

"This is it, isn't it?"

Liara is stood by the door to the shuttle, fiddling with the chin controls on her hardsuit.

"Yeah. No turning back, now."

"It's funny," she says, "the proper you—the _other_ you, I mean—she'd spend this time doing target practice."

I'm not sure what to make of that. "I just want it over with."

"It must be an outside force," Liara says. "It's hard not to suspect that Cerberus is involved, somehow."

I've toyed with the idea myself. "But how?"

"I have no idea."

We load ourselves into the shuttle, and Cortez starts the engines. He doesn't try to make any small-talk, and I can see in the reflection of the screen that he doesn't have a goatee.

I wonder for a while if his story's different in this world. If he lost his husband here, too, and if he's coping with it.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and then I feel it pull away. A look of guilt is painted on Liara's face, and pain: she misses _her_ Shepard, and instinctively wants to hold me, a man in a woman's skin, but knows she must not.

"It's OK," I whisper, glad to have her at least as a friend, and take her hand in mine.

She clasps my fingers between hers, and smiles as the shuttle pops and hisses its way towards Cronos Station.


	3. Farewell to the Shepard

**Thursday afternoon**

"Go, Shepard! I will hold the line!"

I don't bother arguing with EDI, and dive through the closing door as the drone cuts through three troopers at once, electrifying their hardsuits and sending them tumbling to the floor.

A nav-point appears on my HUD, but judging by this room, it'll be quite a maze: an office, with a waist-height wall leading out into a corridor.

I can hear something buzzing. Something loud, something low-pitched, throbbing and bassy in nature.

There's something tingling on my head—it's my mole, itching and burning, but I can't scratch it through my helmet. It's nice to know that I've retained it, at least, between genders.

There's a crack and a flash of red triangles ahead of me, and I snap off two rifle shots. The pulse rifle has a _lot_ of recoil, but it's effective: the two Cerberus troopers crumple in a shower of electrical arcs and sparking.

"EDI," I call, "can you get me a schematic, or a map?"

_"Negative, Commander. The corridor you have entered appears not to be on any internal schematics."_

So whatever it is, it must be important. The buzzing noise gets louder as I proceed, keeping a close eye on the IFF sensor at the side-corridors and doors.

There's a glowing red panel next to this bulkhead. _LEVEL 1 SECURITY CLEARANCE ONLY. DO NOT ALLOW OTHERS TO TAILGATE BEHIND YOU—YOU ARE ON VIDEO!_

Whatever's happening in here, Cerberus wants it quiet, so that's probably a good way to go: the terminals suggested that the Prothean VI from Thessia might have been stored in here.

I press my omni-tool against the door, and the dials spin and turn. The bulkhead unseals and splits, and—

"Shit!" I gasp, stepping back and firing a rifle blast into the temple of the husk that's crept through the door. There's more—dozens behind it, their glowing faces scowling at me as they reach for me, pull at the release clasp on my helmet—

_BOOM._

The world spins, my brain splits open in pain as a grenade blast hurls me back at least ten metres. The husks scream as they burn, their bodies disintegrating into piles of ash, and—

"Shepard," I hear.

That's _my_ voice: the voice I had when I was a man, and I blink, and look upwards.

"You're in my hardsuit." That's me—it's disconcerting, seeing myself and it not moving, like a reflection, whenever I do. "Come on. On your feet, soldier," he says.

Is this another Shepard? He—

"You're me," I say, leaning backwards and pushing myself upright.

"And you're me," he says. "And no offence, but I'd quite like my own ass back."

He—the person in _my_ body—is a she. "This is your body?"

"Yeah. This yours?"

"One of three," I say. "I guess you've noticed what's going on, then?"

"Very quickly," the other Shepard says, waving me forwards. "As soon as I grew a penis."

She's nothing if not forthright. "Do you know how many of us there are?"

"Four, at least." She (it _is_ a she, despite her male appearance) marches forward, as if she hadn't just dispatched around a dozen husks with a single incendiary grenade. "I've been in four bodies so far."

"Including your own?"

"Yup. Same?"

"Same," I say. "Any idea what's causing it?"

"What do you think?" the other Shepard says, incredulously. "It's gotta be Cerberus."

"I thought so."

"But this is crazy, even for a sonofabitch like the Illusive Man," she mused.

"That, and Sanctuary," I agree. "Whatever he's doing… I want a word with him."

"Yep." The other Shepard peers around a bend in the corridor, and waves us forward. "And then put a bullet between his eyes."

"That, too." My head's still sore from the grenade blast. "I'll bet he's left here by now, though. Probably—_gah!_"

I feel a searing pain at the base of my neck, and the other Shepard grunts, and we both tumble to the ground.

* * *

The floor is black, reflective tiling, and it takes me a few seconds to work out which way is up.

I reach upwards and touch my head. No hair—I'm buzz cut, and I can feel all my own parts between my legs. It's nice to have the correct sexual features again.

"Up! Look up!"

I roll onto my back at the sound of my own voice as the face of the woman Shepard—the face I'd had until just now—swims into view.

"You OK?"

"Fine. What the hell just happened?"

"Ask yourself," she says, gesturing with her head at a glowing control terminal with two soldiers stood at it.

I stand, and they turn their heads. Two more of me. Great. I rub my forehead with my fingers—it's hard to feel through the haptic simulators of the gloves, but it's _my_ scar again. "I'm assuming it's you that did that?" I demand.

"Yes," the Shepard on the right says. "We should now all be in the correct bodies."

"How does it work?"

"It's a chip of some kind, that's all we know. And we know where it is."

"Where?"

"Think about it," the woman Shepard says, rubbing the back of her neck.

Gently, I raise my hand to my neck and find that mole. Suddenly it doesn't feel like a mole: too soft, too detached, and with a core too solid.

Gently, wincing, I pull at it, and it comes free. Now that I can see it properly, it's glowing slightly, a pale blue. "That's it, then?"

"Looks like it." The woman Shepard removes her mole, drops it on the floor, and crushes it beneath her boot. "I knew I couldn't trust that bastard," she says.

"It still doesn't explain why." I peer around the room properly for the first time. There's a tremendous glass wall at one end, tinted hard-glass pock-marked with strikes from stellar wind and micrometeorites. The star outside is enormous, orange-red, its tumultuous surface wobbling angrily.

"This is the Illusive Man's office," I whisper. I've only ever seen it as a hologram before, and I'm surprised by how cold, how cavernous it is. One of the other male Shepards is sat in the chair where the Illusive Man always seemed to sit, smoking something or other.

There's a strong smell of tobacco, and some residual smoke hovering near the ceiling.

"What's your progress?" I ask.

"Vendetta _is_ on here," the Shepard sat in the Illusive Man's seat says. "It'll take a while to start up, thou—"

He freezes mid-sentence as the vid-comm platform behind me activates, and flashes bright blue.

"Shepard."

It's the Illusive Man.

"Shepards," he corrects himself, "you're in my office."

"It's not your office any more," the Shepard sat in the seat says, rising and pushing past me to glare at the hologram. "What's been happening to us, what you've been doing… this is wrong. You're not God."

"Still so naïve," the hologram says, taking a drag on a cigarette, "I suppose that is a multiversal constant."

"You can't hide behind your bullshit forever," the woman Shepard snaps. "This isn't for humanity's sake. You've hurt me, you've hurt my friends. This stops. _Now._"

"Why?" I venture, leaning forward towards the hologram, hands hovering around the pistol at my waist.

"It's an advantage of building your base in the gravity well of an unstable star. It acts as something of an… antechamber. This complex in particular is configured such that it's a multiversal fixed point."

"Doesn't answer my question," the other male me says. "Why? What are you doing?"

"I understand Miranda told you about her suggestion of a mind-control chip," the Illusive Man begins. "She did make me think very hard, and eventually, I did compromise… albeit without her knowledge."

"And how does playing with time control my mind?"

"Not control. _Guide._" He takes another drag, and exhales deeply. "By exchanging you with a more… sympathetic version of yourself, I could retain your personality, _and_ be guaranteed your loyalty."

"This is wrong," I say. "You've no right to declare yourself master of the universe."

"Is that what you'd do? Leave our race to fester? Understand me, Shepard," the hologram growls, leaning forward, pointing with his cigarette. "Taking control is the key to advancing our race. If we don't seize the opportunity to take control, we stagnate and we die."

"If I get my way," the woman Shepard says, stepping between me and the Illusive Man, "you'll have a bullet up your ass before you get the chance."

"I'll look forward to it," the hologram smirks. "Your idealism is admirable, but… foolish. Destroying the Reapers would be the greatest folly in human history."

"They're occupying Earth!" she ejaculates, shivering with rage. "You'd rather let them harvest our races? Those are people. _Real people._"

"Your myopia never ceases to amaze me." The Illusive Man turns, and begins to disintegrate. "Enjoy your little chat, but I've already acquired what you're looking for. Don't outstay your welcome."

"At arms!" she calls, suddenly, and there's a _crack_ as a shadowy figure emerges from the threshold behind the glowing holographic particles.

Kai Leng.

I grasp my pistol and fire, once, twice, and his shields flare bright blue. Another Shepard (I've stopped keeping track of which one's which) empties his heatsink into Leng's shield generator as he charges towards us with a machete.

I fire on the sword. It shatters into two shards and Leng swings his fragment over his shoulder. The female Shepard kicks him between the legs. She clasps at his wrist and grapples, twisting the machete from his hands.

He headbutts her away. He leaps at another of us and I fumble to reload my assault rifle.

"Get him, quick!" one of us yells, "he's lost shields!"

The heatsink clicks into place, and I take aim, and squeeze thirty rounds into Leng's back.

The woman Shepard punches him on the nose, and again, and throws him to the floor with a _thump_ as she activates her omni-blade and drives it through Leng's chest.

There's a crackle as Leng's shield generator fails, and silence.

"Everyone in one piece?" one of the others asks, to a chorus of "yes"es.

I take a deep breath and turn about to the terminal, as another Shepard rushes to complete the startup process for the Prothean VI dump.

"Online. Quantum fluctuations detected," it says, the green hologram flickering where the Illusive Man had been standing a moment before. "Security protocols permit me to answer your queries."

"We need to know what the Catalyst is," another Shepard says.

"I will comply," the VI announces. "The Catalyst is a structure which amplifies the transmission of dark energy signatures through four-space via the mass relay network. It was originally a Reaper construction, intended to be harnessed by the Crucible to help eliminate their threat."

"How?"

"The Crucible is not a weapon. It is a bio-molecular synthesiser. Its primary function is to transform both synthetic and organic biologies around a new template."

"And how does that defeat the Reapers?" the woman Shepard demands.

"Unknown. This construct is not equipped to simulate the outcome of the activation of the Crucible."

So we're activating a weapon—a weapon that isn't a weapon—and we have no idea what it's actually supposed to do. Great.

The VI continues, "the Catalyst is incorporated into the Crucible design to amplify the transmission of the synthesis signal. Once an invading matrix is loaded into the system, the mass relay network is overloaded to ensure a perpetual broadcast of the transmission signal across the galaxy."

"So we use their own technology against them," the woman Shepard says.

"That is correct."

"Yes," I press, "but what _is_ the Catalyst?"

"The races in your cycle refer to it as the Citadel."

_The Citadel?_ Dammit. "Thank you," I say, turning to the other Shepards. "We need to get the Crucible to the Citadel."

"That may no longer be possible," the VI interrupts. "The data stored on this system indicates that the Reapers have been informed of the completion of the Crucible by the one you refer to as the Illusive Man. The Catalyst has been moved."

"Moved!" another Shepard says.

"Yes. It has been captured by the Reapers and moved to the Sol system."

"Sol… _Earth._" I turn back to the other Shepards. "Why Earth? What's special about Earth?"

"If it's the current focus of the harvesting efforts, it'll be easy to fortify it there."

"In that case," I say, "we _have_ to get back to the Sol system. Now."

"You," the woman Shepard corrects me.

"What?"

"Once we leave this complex, we'll all be trapped in our own timelines. Remember?"

Our own timelines. For a moment I'd forgotten that I was talking with alternate versions of myself. "Yes. At least we know, now."

"We're wasting our time here," she says, turning and striding away. I want to stop her, but I'm not sure why.

"We've got to go, now," another says, and marches to the door as the other returns to the Illusive Man's terminal and activates his omni-tool.

"What are you doing?"

"Copying a dump of the VI," he says, re-seating himself in the Illusive Man's chair. "It'll only take a minute or two."

I remember the alternate Shepards whose bodies I occupied. Which one's this one?

"Shepard," I say, only now realising how odd it is to address someone else with my own name, "are you… in your world, do you have something going on with Kaidan?" It's a fifty-fifty chance, but he needs to know the news.

The other man looks up. "Yes, I do. Why?"

"When I was… uh," I say, uncertain of how to phrase this. "When I was in your world, in your body, Kaidan told me some news… bad news."

His face hardens a little. "Bad news?"

"Yeah, he's… Chakwas scanned him to see if she could find out what was making the migraines worse." I take a deep breath. "He's got a brain tumour."

He inhales sharply, but says nothing as I continue. "He said the prognosis is about a year's life expectancy… and they _can_ operate, but it'd mean removing his implant. And the mortality rate's…"

"Very high?"

"Forty per cent," I say.

The other Shepard's mouth clenches shut, and he looks away, at the terminal. "I'm sorry," I blurt. "I'm sorry you had to hear it from me."

"It's not a problem," he says, completing the download and running an integrity check. "At least I heard it from myself."

"Huh," I chuckle. I pause for a moment. "If you don't mind me asking," I venture, quietly, "what happened on Virmire in your world?"

"It was…" he says, pausing to find the right words just like I would—he and I are the same man, the two most similar, at least, I remember. "I still remember exactly what happened. Kaidan pinged me as soon as I stepped out of that elevator… and the mission computer said I was eight metres closer to him than I was to Ash."

Eight metres. "That's funny," I said. "The way I remember it, I ran from the elevator, and… the HUD said I was six metres closer to Ash. If it hadn't been…"

Fourteen metres. If I hadn't run from the elevator… it's frightening, unsettling and depressing that that was all that was in it. Fourteen metres, less than five second's sprinting.

"Yeah." We both know what the other is thinking, imagining how different things could have been. "Is there anything happening between you and Ash?"

"Yeah." Ash. I suddenly felt an itch to get out of here, get back to the ship and hold Ash tight. "We've been going for… around three years now."

"Good," the other Shepard says, sending a copy of the VI dump to my omni-tool.

"What about you?"

"Six weeks," he says. "He wasn't too sure himself. He needed Joker to push him into doing something."

I smile. "Sounds like the Kaidan I knew."

"He said he'd wanted me for months, years, even." The other Shepard sighs. "If I'd known… well, maybe things would've been different."

"Yeah." We pass through the threshold and back through the complex corridor, fingers trained on the triggers of our (identical) assault rifles. "We can't dwell on it, though."

We're back at the bulkhead, now, and the doors are sealed. There's no sign of the other two Shepards. "Well," the other me says, "I suppose… this is goodbye."

"I suppose so." I hold out my hand, and the other Shepard takes it, shaking with a grip that feels oddly limp. "Reckon anyone else has shaken hands with themselves in the past?"

"Probably not." He smiles and pats my shoulder. "Have a good life, Shepard. And… do Ashley proud."

"You too, you do the same. Be fearless, and… make damn sure Kaidan gets the chance to have that surgery."

"Yeah." He cocks a grin, as I pop an identical one. "Good luck," he smiles, and the bulkhead slides open as he vanishes in a hail of Cerberus bullets.

_"Shepard!"_ That's EDI's voice, and she sends another centurion toppling as I run free, free of the antechamber, back home.

* * *

**Thursday evening**

The doors are finally silent again, but they're taking forever to open and close.

The lights are on the emergency settings, and there's still the odd bit of smoke rising from the armoury. Whatever's happened in this world, my other self has been ruthless in the assault on Cronos Station.

"Give me the update."

"Seven of the twelve power linkages on the drive core have been ruptured," EDI announces over the intercom as I clamber up the emergency ladders, "it will take six hours to discharge it to safely complete repairs."

_Six hours._ That's a long time, and it'll take us at least twenty to recharge and return to the mass relay so we can get back to the Solar system. "Are we doing it?"

"It's already under-way, but we can only move under auxiliary thrusters until repairs have been completed."

"Understood," I say, pulling myself up on to the bridge. "The last Shepard you had here…"

"She was adamant about firing upon the station at every opportunity," Traynor says. "I think she may have let the testosterone get to her."

"Very funny, Specialist," I say, re-activating the private terminal. All my mails—_my_ emails—are back. "How long have you known about the parallel-universe business?"

"Two days," she says, "but only after Liara melded with you—the _other_ you. Many of the crew are still unaware—"

_HOOT. HOOT. HOOT. HOOT._

That's the ship's horn, a piercing blast over the intercom and radio channels, an emergency broadcast from the fleet… god, please—

_HOOT. HOOT. HOOT._

Seven blasts of the horn—the universal signal to order an immediate evacuation from the system.

"Shit… Commander!" It's Joker, and he's got that sharp tone in his voice that signals bad news.

"What is it?"

"Look at the star," he says. I peer through the viewscreen.

"What's changed?"

"Something's happening to it, energy readings are off the charts, it's burning oxygen."

Anadius is glowing a bright amber colour, its surface howling with a solar storm. "Do you think it's going supernova?" I demand.

"Jeff's predictions appear to be correct. According to—"

"Dammit, EDI, just tell me how long we have."

"Two hundred seconds, plus or minus twenty seconds."

Less than three and a half minutes, and there's no way our shields and armour will protect us from a supernova blast. Not this close. Shit. "Adams!" I call down to the engine room, "I need the FTL drives back online in three minutes or we're all dead!"

_"What?"_

"Anadius is about to go supernova, we need to get the hell out of here. _Now._"

"Aye, sir." The call clicks off, and I bark at Joker to get us out of here at best speed. There's a pang in my stomach, the same stab of guilt I got three years ago when sending Kaidan to arm the bomb, when I sent Thane into the ducts on the Collector base.

Adams is going to have to reactivate those failed power couplings manually, and he might well die in the process. Unless…

"Dammit," I say, taking off on one foot towards the back of the bridge, "I'm going down there."

"Negative, Shepard. I am heading down there myself," EDI announces.

"What? EDI," Joker bellows into the intercom, "you can't do that!"

"Jeff, if those power couplings aren't reconnected within three minutes, we'll _all_ be dead. I still reside within the _Normandy,_ the android is simply an avatar for the—"

"Shit, I _know._"

"Don't worry, Joker," I say, breathing out and returning to the seat. "She'll be fine."

"I will be fine, Jeff," she confirms, as there's a horrible rattling noise from the lower decks and the ship lurches. One of the power couplings—Adams must have already started.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit shiiiiiiit," Joker swears as he brings the _Normandy_ about and puts the aft camera on the viewscreen.

"Time?"

"One hundred sixty seconds," EDI announces.

"Distance from Anadius?"

"Ten thousand kilometres… _dammit,_" Jeff spits, slamming the console, "go!"

We've got two and a half minutes or we're all dead.

"How can Cerberus _blow up a star?_" I muse, not realising until I've finished saying it that I was saying it out loud.

"For god's sake, Commander," Joker snaps, jerking around in his chair to glare me in the eye, "Cerberus can abduct you, bring you back from the dead and replace you with alternate versions of yourself. _Of course_ they can blow up a star."

There's a wail from the lower decks, and a _pop_ from the aft section of the ship's bowels. "Engine room!" I bark down the intercom. "What's happening!"

* * *

_Garrus slides down the ladder, breaking into a run before he's even landed and vaulting over the safety rail._

_"Adams!" he yells, "get out of there!"_

_"No!" He's crawling along the access rails in the wall, his eyes streaked with tears and squeezed shut in the blazing light of the drive core._

_Garrus follows him, tiptoeing along support struts and leaping from one conduit to another._

_"I'm not sure what's got into Shepard lately," he growls as he approaches Adams and grasps him by the scruff of his neck with his free hand, "but I'd trust that man to the end of the universe."_

_With one arm, he tosses Adams to the balcony and barks at him to get out of here._

_"No!" Adams staggers to his feet. "For god's sakes, Garrus, what are you doing? Get out of there!"_

* * *

"Time?"

"T-minus thirty-five seconds."

I take a deep breath, and stare into the face of Death as its glow turns a piercing white.

"We're not going to make it, are we?" I whisper.

"_Dammit,_" Joker snaps, and I can hear he's as close to tears as I've ever seen him.

No way out, this time: in thirty seconds that star is going to incinerate us all.

* * *

_"Get out of the way!" Ash yells without thinking as she pushes past EDI's drone and thumps at the door to engineering._

_Garrus. No…_

_He's clinging to the final support rail as the drive core screams, bracing himself against the blast of eezo and superheated ozone._

_He points his omni-tool at the final broken linkage—_

_"Garrus!" Ash screams, and he looks up, for one moment, and shouts something—_

_She knows what to do. Adams is grasping the handrail—she pulls at him, dragging him from the engineering room in a fireman's lift._

_"God… Garrus…"_

_"Quickly!" Ash yells, bracing him against the outside wall and thumping at the door control,_

_and there's a crack_

_and a flash of white_

_and silence._

* * *

"Shepard, the drive core is back online!"

_"Thank god,"_ I whisper. _"GO, Jeff!"_

The drive core _cracks_ and squeals, and there's a flash before us—

and we're safe.

"That was close."

"Yeah." Joker engages the auto-pilot and stands, fingers trembling. "God… that was _too_ close."

"You OK?"

"Fine," he says, leaning against his seat and taking deep breaths. I hit a button on my omni-tool and call Engineering.

"EDI, damage report…"

"Shepard!"

"Ash?"

"Get down here. _Now,_" she says, and her voice is weak, and I can hear Adams babbling, and EDI's drone moving.

"Traynor, take the conn. Joker, you going to be OK coming with me?"

"Yeah," Joker says, clearly lying, but I don't protest as he follows me down the emergency ladders and _tries_ to break into a run along the engineering deck corridor, falling forwards and probably breaking a leg bone somewhere. I help him up, and we stumble around the corner—

"Ashley," I whisper. It's her, administering some medi-gel to a burn on Adams's leg.

Adams…

"Shepard," and she rushes to me and I fall into her arms, nestling into her sweaty, exhausted figure.

"Who…"

"It's Garrus," she whispers.

I feel a dreadful loosening of my digestive system and close my eyes instinctively. Garrus.

I lean into Ash's face and cling to her, breathing.


	4. The Eleventh Hour

A funeral wake is never a pleasant thing to preside over.

As a Commander who's only the _Normandy's_ nominal master, I'm not permitted to preside over weddings. Funerals, on the other hand, can't be avoided, and we don't have the space for a chaplain.

We'd held a small wake on the first _Normandy_ for Kaidan, while still grounded on the Citadel: just a few of us, Ash, Liara, Tali and Garrus. I'd invited Anderson, and he'd sent across a bottle of wine, but was ultimately too busy planning mutiny.

Since they took Earth, though, the funerals have become ever-more frequent. And now, it's Garrus's turn.

The ship's configuration means I'm hemmed in around the memorial wall as my breath catches on a growing lump in my throat. I've never wept before my crew before, but I'm _that close_ today.

"Friends…" I begin, unable to bring myself to address these people whom I love and care for as 'comrades' or similar, "you all know as well as I do that Garrus Vakarian was a true soldier, and a true friend. He was one of the bravest souls I've ever known, one of the strongest… and in all honesty, if he knew about this, us gathering here to remember him, he'd probably kick my ass a million times over."

A muted but cathartic laugh, and in the corner of my eye I catch a puzzling expression on Lieutenant Vega's face that I've never seen before.

"He was fearless," I continue, "he was compassionate, and he'd hate to be remembered sentimentally. But…" I cough, and inhale deeply, acutely aware of how much I'm sweating in my dress blues, "remember him, remember his sacrifice, and be thankful for what a wonderful person he was.

"Although everything in me hopes that you'll never have to repeat his sacrifice, some sacrifice is inevitable. We _are_ going to lose people," I say, remembering when Garrus told me the same thing just over a year ago, "but in his honour… be brave, be fearless, and don't forget that we all owe him a round of drinks."

There's a patter of muted laughter, and Cortez hands me the freshly-fabricated metallic plate. It takes a little push to remove the blanking plate from the wall, and a little more to slide the new one into place. There's a free slot underneath Kaidan's that seems strangely appropriate.

I stand at Ash's side as the Last Post plays. I wish, not for the first time, that we'd had something left to bury: Garrus's body had been vaporised when the drive core activated, so there wasn't even anything left to say goodbye to and place in a vacant torpedo tube.

The Bar at the End of the Universe is an old astronautical idea of an afterlife: taken seriously by no-one, but taken as comfort during dark times by everyone. By now, the number of tabs I owe people must be astronomical: Kaidan, Mordin, Thane, Zaeed, Chambers, Daniels, Donnelly, Garrus.

A big, happy reunion probably isn't going to happen, but clinging to the hope that it just might, one day, is something that helps keep us all going.

James stands before the wall, his oversized figure looking cleaner than usual. He's actually wearing his dress blues, too, and clutching a guitar in his hands.

I notice Tali sobbing into her hands behind a pillar, her faceplate blank as ever but her mood clear from the little snorts of sound coming from behind it. Cortez takes her in his arms as James begins playing, and I briefly remember that there were rumours going around that she and Garrus had started something together.

James's voice is better than it was in the alternate universe, hoarse but on-key as he provides a quiet, melancholic rendition of _Abide With Me._

I lean on Ash's shoulder and squeeze her hand in my own as we say farewell to another of our friends.

* * *

The cabin is darkened, save for the dull glow of the fish tank and the glimmer of the FTL drives through the porthole in the ceiling.

I can hear a sharp inhalation of breath as the hustle alarm sounds and the door clanks shut. Walking on tiptoes, I approach the bundled mess on my bed and gently fold away one of the bunched sheets.

Kaidan looks like death, his face clammy and his hair dampened with sweat. I can tell he's in agony, and I remember what the other Shepard told me.

It breaks my heart to see him like this, but he does let out a little gasp of something like relief as I press my cheek against his and close my eyes.

"I've missed you," I whisper, bringing his face around and rubbing his cheekbones with my thumbs.

"Same here." Kaidan cracks his eyes open ever so slightly, and we both smile, foreheads resting together as I inhale the smell of ozone again.

"I told myself," I begin, slowly, not sure how I was going to put this but deciding that I'd best say it now, instead of leaving it and regretting it, "I told myself I wouldn't say this until after I'd won this war, but… I love you."

His smile widens and he lets out another little snort of breath.

"I love you," I repeat, "and whatever happens, I want to spend my life with you. And I'm going to do _everything_ I possibly can to make sure we get that chance."

"Thanks, Shepard," he whispers, "but… right now, I'm not sure I'll have the chance to…"

"You will." I kiss him on the lips. "You'll survive this, you'll have that surgery, and you'll live for many years and be an old man."

"Old man Kaidan." A faint smirk hitches on his breath. "No good in an old man Kaidan without an old man Shepard."

I wonder for a moment what'll happen if he makes it but I don't. He'll survive, of course, he'll plod onwards, but he deserves better. Kaidan has made it very clear that for him, there isn't anyone else.

"Yeah. You being here, at my side, it means… _you_ mean everything to me. Right now. And I…"

I don't want to consider the possibility. It could well happen, but I won't be around to see the aftermath.

"I adore you," Kaidan whispers, and I clasp his hand, interlacing our fingers and holding as tight as I can.

I don't care if I have eleven hours, eleven months or the rest of my life with him. We nestle into each other and enjoy the here and now, while we still can.

* * *

The pungent smell of her perfume (Serious Perfume, she's dubbed it—the only time she ever wears it is at funerals) is unavoidable. On the other hand, the cheap, rationed shampoo's never smelled so good as I breathe into Ash's shoulder, idly playing with her hair with my free hand.

"What was it like? In the other worlds?" she whispers.

"Different."

"How different?"

I've decided to be honest, but it's still hard to describe—and admit—what happened in the parallel worlds. I've made an effort to explain it to the crew, but the details are still sketchy and I wish there was a way to dump the entirety of my brain into the report I'd eventually have to write for Hackett.

"Very."

Ash looks me in the eye. "What about Kaidan? Virmire?"

"It was…" I think for a moment, and then blurt without thinking. "The other me rescued Kaidan instead. And in… in one of the worlds, he and I… _they'd_ just started a romantic liaison."

Ash doesn't look surprised, nor (to my own surprise) disappointed. She does spend a little while staring at the ceiling, pensively. "There are some days," she mutters, eventually, "I still feel like I should've been the one who died on Virmire."

"_Don't_ say that!" I tell her.

"No, it's… I love you, and I'm proud of what I've done, but sometimes I still think if I had a time machine…"

"Yeah." I've thought the same. I often think _I_ should've been the one to give up my life on Virmire.

"Was he happy? In the other world?"

"Yes," I whisper. "He did, he seemed so, so happy."

"I suppose that's good, then," she smiles.

"Yeah." I kiss her on the cheek. "Are you happy?"

"Yes."

And that's that. I stop thinking about what might have been, and what could be happening across the gulf of 4-space, and find myself happy for what _is._

I'm happy, Ash is happy, my crew is ready, and we're going to smash the Reapers to hell and back.

Tomorrow.


End file.
